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Just in time for the weekend, Microsoft has released a new Insider preview build of Windows 10. Build 18329 should be available now to most people who have opted into the fast preview ring. Though it's not available to everyone because, for some reason, the new build isn't available in all the languages it'd normally be shipped in.

The strangest new feature is that you can now launch and run regular Win32 apps—2D apps built for the desktop—in the Windows Mixed Reality environment that's used for both virtual reality headsets and the HoloLens augmented reality headset. Previously, it was only possible to run apps built using the modern UWP API. Now, it seems that any Windows application will work. If you want to use Photoshop or Visual Studio with a headset on, you can.

The new build also adds a couple of new scripts to support the writing of languages that until recently had no adequate written form. There's the Osage language spoken by the Osage Nation in Oklahoma (which prior to 2006 used the Latin alphabet with various diacritics) and the ADLaM script used to write Pular, the language of the Fulani people in West Africa (which, similarly, used the Roman alphabet with diacritics prior to the development of the new alphabet in the 1980s). ADLaM and Osage were both added to Unicode in 2016.

As Ars' resident "Windows 10 isn't working for me" staffer, I am really stuck here. On the one hand, installing an Insider Build of W10 will almost certainly explode in my face somehow.

On the other, I am seriously tempted to roll those dice... just to spend a day working with a Vive Pro strapped to my face and having a beautiful panorama of work apps to glance at. Forget tabs; I'll just have dozens of web browser windows open like a deck of giant Tarot cards.

This may be my only shot at finally defeating my esteemed colleague Ron Amadeo in the most-monitors-at-once contest. Color me interested.

The strangest new feature is that you can now launch and run regular Win32 apps—2D apps built for the desktop—in the Windows Mixed Reality environment that's used for both virtual reality headsets and the HoloLens augmented reality headset.

Surprising might be the better word - I'd expect this is an offshoot of HoloLens development. Which presumably means they are still planning on commercializing it at some point

Back in the early 2000s there was an app called "SphereXP" that was essentially exactly what this is, minus the VR element. It created a 3d "Sphere" that you could rotate around inside, putting your apps anywhere inside the sphere and rotating away/back to them.

It was extremely cool for about twenty minutes, until you realize that even the most basic apps required a lot more computational resources to run, and you have to look all over, up and down, just to find where you put your music player.

If you could collaborate with others this would be great but I'm guessing this is single user. Hopefully this is just a first step. I really need Teams or Skype for business in VR. I spend most of my day in meetings where all the participants are remote.

I have to admit, this would potentially be killer with the HoloLens. There's a whole lot of custom apps written for enterprise that would be great to have pinned to a wall to glance at, but aren't written in UWP yet.

Wonder if they're going to support VR-specific enhancements like they're doing with UWP wrappers for Win32 apps.

The strangest new feature is that you can now launch and run regular Win32 apps—2D apps built for the desktop—in the Windows Mixed Reality environment that's used for both virtual reality headsets and the HoloLens augmented reality headset.

Surprising might be the better word - I'd expect this is an offshoot of HoloLens development. Which presumably means they are still planning on commercializing it at some point

HoloLens 3.0-that-we-are-calling-2.0 is suppose to be announced and shown off at MWC this year. Having stuff some out ahead of that, or at least tested with Insiders before than, makes sense.

I wonder what other bits of HoloLens 2 are buried in Windows 10/Insiders builds.

On one hand, the idea of "virtual monitors" intrigues me and this seems a step in that direction. Being able to sit in my cube at work and hang windows wherever I need would be neat.

On the other, there's so much that I'd rather see that dev time go to...like faster and less intrusive updates. Preferably ones that don't need a couple months' development time after "release" to stop losing people's files. Maybe stop dicking about with telemetry.

This is the true killer feature of VR. Games and visualization are a gimmick in comparison. The moment you get sufficient resolution on headsets, this becomes a better solution than multi-monitor setups. Entire offices, where Win32 is king, can then be outfitted with VR headsets and significantly improve productivity. And once businesses get on board, economies of scale kick in, headsets become a commodity, and it all trickles down to the markets VR has been trying to conquer so far.

Pure speculation, of course, but I'm buying more MSFT as I'm typing this.

I can sort of get my mind around the idea of editing vector graphics, Photoshop files, or even just sorting collections of photos, in 3D. Photoshop and Illustrator feature significant use of layers, and it might be fun to work with them in a virtual space. But I don’t really want to wear a headset.

I had to ask myself "why"? I read a few comments and saw the reasons, but I'm not sure it's anything other than a gimmick. I mean, it looks "cool", but how practical will it be? Will it actually improve productivity? Or will it get in the way of things, dazzling people (or making them nauseous) with VR windows flying all over the place?

It'd be cool for 3D apps like DAZ, Poser, Blender and such, because it would actually facilitate content creation. But looking at an spreadsheets in 3D is enough to make me think I'd go blind (or lose my lunch) trying to focus between the lines at the formulas.

Sort of a mixed bag there in that it could be VERY useful for a small handful of applications, but probably would blow (chunks) for most others which are entirely 2D based.

Assuming this makes it into the final release for April, time will tell how that plays out.

As Ars' resident "Windows 10 isn't working for me" staffer, I am really stuck here. On the one hand, installing an Insider Build of W10 will almost certainly explode in my face somehow.

On the other, I am seriously tempted to roll those dice... just to spend a day working with a Vive Pro strapped to my face and having a beautiful panorama of work apps to glance at. Forget tabs; I'll just have dozens of web browser windows open like a deck of giant Tarot cards.

This may be my only shot at finally defeating my esteemed colleague Ron Amadeo in the most-monitors-at-once contest. Color me interested.

Kind of baffled that this whole zero-sum game people think exists gets propped up in as many threads as it does.

Do people here actually think the people who work on this sort of stuff are going to work on whatever their issues with Windows 10 is instead? On top of that, the money spent working on it will not go anywhere else if this did not happen, they would just spend less money making Windows 10/etc. (or at the least, it would not suddenly go to the hiring more testers).

Also, I dont see why EVERY Windows 10 or MS thread must devolve into "let me complain about some issue I have with Windows 10". Perhaps create a thread, if one doesn't somehow already exist, for this in the forums. On top of that, I waiting eagerly for someone to figure out a way to mention Trump as well. :-P

I had to ask myself "why"? I read a few comments and saw the reasons, but I'm not sure it's anything other than a gimmick. I mean, it looks "cool", but how practical will it be? Will it actually improve productivity? Or will it get in the way of things, dazzling people (or making them nauseous) with VR windows flying all over the place?

It'd be cool for 3D apps like DAZ, Poser, Blender and such, because it would actually facilitate content creation. But looking at an spreadsheets in 3D is enough to make me think I'd go blind (or lose my lunch) trying to focus between the lines at the formulas.

Sort of a mixed bag there in that it could be VERY useful for a small handful of applications, but probably would blow (chunks) for most others which are entirely 2D based.

Assuming this makes it into the final release for April, time will tell how that plays out.

On the other hand, your desk is no longer covered in monitors, and can once again be, you know, a desk. You'd just hang the AR/VR goggles on a hook and look ma, no more real-world clutter.

This is the true killer feature of VR. Games and visualization are a gimmick in comparison. The moment you get sufficient resolution on headsets, this becomes a better solution than multi-monitor setups. Entire offices, where Win32 is king, can then be outfitted with VR headsets and significantly improve productivity. And once businesses get on board, economies of scale kick in, headsets become a commodity, and it all trickles down to the markets VR has been trying to conquer so far.

Pure speculation, of course, but I'm buying more MSFT as I'm typing this.

Agreed. Microsoft has done some amazingly visionary things the past few years but has botched the rollout a bit. Windows phone is a great example. The design philosophy of windows phone is brilliant but they missed some of the details.

I had to ask myself "why"? I read a few comments and saw the reasons, but I'm not sure it's anything other than a gimmick. I mean, it looks "cool", but how practical will it be? Will it actually improve productivity? Or will it get in the way of things, dazzling people (or making them nauseous) with VR windows flying all over the place?

It'd be cool for 3D apps like DAZ, Poser, Blender and such, because it would actually facilitate content creation. But looking at an spreadsheets in 3D is enough to make me think I'd go blind (or lose my lunch) trying to focus between the lines at the formulas.

Sort of a mixed bag there in that it could be VERY useful for a small handful of applications, but probably would blow (chunks) for most others which are entirely 2D based.

Assuming this makes it into the final release for April, time will tell how that plays out.

On the other hand, your desk is no longer covered in monitors, and can once again be, you know, a desk. You'd just hang the AR/VR goggles on a hook and look ma, no more real-world clutter.

As cool as that sounds, how would you handle it when you need to show someone something? I'm on a team, and we have various specializations in our software. "Oh, you have a problem with X? Go ask Jane. You have a question about Y? Bill can help you there." They come to your desk. What are you showing them? Is everyone expected to somehow "jack in" to your view of things? Is your network up to sharing multiple 3D environments between team members? What about security? You have two windows open but only need to share the VS Code window or SQL Server window. How do you "hide" the rest of whatever else is open?

There are a lot of cool ideas here, but this is years away from being available in a professional environment. It may be cool at home, but even then, it makes sharing content a whole new issue if you want to experience the content simultaneously.

I read an article a while back where someone tried to work in VR; their attempts to do so were robbed by pixel density. Hopefully this is a sign that Microsoft think that's going to be a solved problem soon (let's wait for foveated rendering to get baked in!). More likely continuing efforts to refractor / streamline the rendering pipeline allowed this as a cute offshoot or test case.

Entire offices, where Win32 is king, can then be outfitted with VR headsets and significantly improve productivity. And once businesses get on board, economies of scale kick in, headsets become a commodity, and it all trickles down to the markets VR has been trying to conquer so far.

Just like 3D movies are going to take over the world. Each and every time. At about 15 year intervals. But it never does.

As for productivity, um, no. People wearing VR headsets cannot see the real world and many of them will be overcome by nausea after quite limited use. Putting a second monitor on each person's desk would do far more for productivity than VR headsets would.

I had to ask myself "why"? I read a few comments and saw the reasons, but I'm not sure it's anything other than a gimmick. I mean, it looks "cool", but how practical will it be? Will it actually improve productivity? Or will it get in the way of things, dazzling people (or making them nauseous) with VR windows flying all over the place?.

I think it requires the ability to group windows so I can organize or move them together, and a way to minimize distractions (kill web advertisements and suppress notifications) ... but imagine now with VR, anywhere can be your workspace. Sit down at your kitchen table with your VR headset and your desktop is readily available, set your headset aside and it's now all cleaned up (even more awesome on the plane or train, not constrained by your phone or tablet screen).

But I think it'll shine with AR, such as a next generation hololens, that is more subtle and still enables you to interact with the physical world (and people). Now you can go about your day and still have access to all your programs. Need to bring up some extra information for reference at the coffee shop, or in a meeting, but not obstruct your view, this enables that. Need to reference speadsheets or docs for calibration specifications while fixing some machinery, this enables that.

Yeah, it will probably be abused or gimmicky without a good headset, and not suitable to all applications, but that's how tech develops.